Published: Saturday, June 1, 2013 at 11:12 PM.

Whitehead has been selected as a crew member aboard Oracle Team USA’s 45-foot catamaran in the Youth America’s Cup scheduled for September 1-4 in San Francisco. Whitehead, a 20-year-old Bay County native, was one of only six sailors named to compete aboard the high-performance vessel capable of reaching speeds of well over 30 knots on the water.

“This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done or will ever do as a youth sailor,” Whitehead said.

Darren Bundock, a 14-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist, was the featured speaker at an event hosted by the St. Andrews Yacht Club on Saturday. Bundock has competed against Whitehead (and Whitehead’s long-time sailing partner, Taylor Reiss) in regattas around the world and is also sailing aboard Team USA’s flagship 72-foot catamaran that will compete in the America’s Cup Sept. 7-22.

Bundock, who is from Australia, is one of the finest multihull sailors in the world. Despite his sterling résumé, Bundock didn’t join Oracle Team USA until mid-2011, however. He said Whitehead is benefiting from the youth program that was created to open doors to younger sailors hoping to compete on the sport’s highest level.

“It’s a pathway to get the America’s Cup,” said Bundock, who is a coach with Oracle Team USA. “He’s already taken one step with the AC45, which is the feeder class for the AC72. Everyone is an athlete. We have two full-time physical trainers. A lot of guys refer to the boat as a floating gym because (the work) is so physical.”

Whitehead has been selected as a crew member aboard Oracle Team USA’s 45-foot catamaran in the Youth America’s Cup scheduled for September 1-4 in San Francisco. Whitehead, a 20-year-old Bay County native, was one of only six sailors named to compete aboard the high-performance vessel capable of reaching speeds of well over 30 knots on the water.

“This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done or will ever do as a youth sailor,” Whitehead said.

Darren Bundock, a 14-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist, was the featured speaker at an event hosted by the St. Andrews Yacht Club on Saturday. Bundock has competed against Whitehead (and Whitehead’s long-time sailing partner, Taylor Reiss) in regattas around the world and is also sailing aboard Team USA’s flagship 72-foot catamaran that will compete in the America’s Cup Sept. 7-22.

Bundock, who is from Australia, is one of the finest multihull sailors in the world. Despite his sterling résumé, Bundock didn’t join Oracle Team USA until mid-2011, however. He said Whitehead is benefiting from the youth program that was created to open doors to younger sailors hoping to compete on the sport’s highest level.

“It’s a pathway to get the America’s Cup,” said Bundock, who is a coach with Oracle Team USA. “He’s already taken one step with the AC45, which is the feeder class for the AC72. Everyone is an athlete. We have two full-time physical trainers. A lot of guys refer to the boat as a floating gym because (the work) is so physical.”

Bundock, like Whitehead, started sailing at the age of 8. He has competed against Whitehead and Reiss in the Formula 18 class of catamarans, and he quickly recognized the young sailors’ talent.

“We’ve done a lot of sailing in the F18 class, and Matthew and Taylor stood out because they were much younger (than other sailors). When they came into the class they were very young. But they’re getting their results.”

About Bundock, Whitehead said: “He is one of my biggest heroes in sailing. He’s an amazing catamaran sailor … We beat him one time, and we were super excited because we beat him in one race.”

Whitehead and Reiss are the defending F18 world champions in the Junior Division, and they placed 12th overall out of 118 teams in the 2012 F18 World Championships. The talented pair also won a U.S. Youth Multihull Championship in 2011.

Reiss is two years younger than Whitehead, however, and was one year shy of the cutoff for tryouts for the Youth America’s Cup. Whitehead said he wished his long-time partner was with him for the experience.

“I think he’s real jealous,” Whitehead said, smiling. “In sailing we try to make each other jealous and try to one-up each other. He’s always been my No. 1 teammate and my best friend. It’s unfortunate he can’t be in this with me.”

Whitehead must make an adjustment from smaller catamarans operated by two sailors to the 45-foot boat that requires six crewmen to operate it on the water. He will be a grinder, who is responsible for the winches that control the position of the catamaran’s runner (back stay) and head sails.

“On the smaller boats you have more jobs to do, but it’s less hard,” said Whitehead, who attends the University of South Florida. “On this boat, there are more people and fewer jobs to do, but it’s so much harder. … Physically it’s more difficult because everything is bigger and harder to pull in. We have people with jobs they need to do, and we have to coordinate who does what at what time.”

Whitehead is a member of the U.S. Olympic Development Team and is eyeing the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where sailors will compete in a mixed class (one male, one female) aboard 17-foot catamarans. He hasn’t started his fundraising campaign yet, though, and he said the 2020 Olympics are an option, too, “because I still have some youth left.”

Whitehead is flying to San Francisco on Monday for training with his new teammates, and they will sail aboard a 40-foot catamaran before they get a couple days aboard a 45-foot catamaran to test themselves. Whitehead said the team is headed to Istanbul, Turkey, on June 22 or 23 and will compete against a few other teams from around the world.

“I’m not sure which ones, but it will be good to have some sparring time and scout out the competition,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead and Reiss will travel to Italy at the end of June to defend their youth world championship. When they return the first week of July, Whitehead said he will head back to California to begin full-time training with Oracle Team USA for the Youth America’s Cup.

Whitehead said he will miss the first two weeks of school at USF next fall. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to mind.

“The America’s Cup is something I’ve always dreamed about doing,” Whitehead said. “When you start sailing, you hear about the America’s Cup. It’s the biggest event in sailing. It’s the oldest trophy in sporting history (162 years old). It’s crazy to think about.”

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